In La Spezia, the procedural developments referring to actions carried out by neo-Nazi squads in 2020 and 2021 have been disclosed: attacks on young anti-fascists committed with the aggravating circumstance of premeditation and ethnic hatred. They were carried out by a group of young people who referred to Loyalty Action, an extreme right-wing movement operating in the North, also based in Genoa. A twenty-seven-year-old member of the group agreed – for 8 months with probation and payment of legal costs – while for three other twenty-year-olds, two boys and a girl, there was admission to probation, in an educational program – functional rehabilitation to extinguish the crime: 200 hours of service at the municipal kennel of La Spezia for two of them and 160 hours at the Public Assistance of Ceparana, the Municipality of the province of La Spezia where one of the two episodes occurred, that of February 22, 2021. The 27-year-old had to settle because he was already being tested when he was responsible for the 2021 assault.
That evening, the young neo-Nazis stalked and beat an eighteen-year-old “guilty” of carrying a sticker on his cell phone with the words “Anti-fascist action”. The carabinieri, thanks to his complaint and the subsequent investigation, traced the attackers. In this way a previous fact came to light, which took place on November 8, 2020 in another municipality in the province, Sarzana. A teenager was surrounded, threatened and slapped because he was wearing a shirt from the Fosdinovo Resistance Festival.
The two attacks revealed the existence of a network of young neo-Nazis operating in the province. The Carabinieri’s report documents “the existence of a group operating in the province of La Spezia, associated with similar groups in Genoa and Milan, ideologically far-right, in particular of National Socialist inspiration (Naziskin or skinn 88), attributable to Loyalty Action and having among its aims the incitement of discrimination and violence on racial, ethnic, national and religious grounds”.
The investigation reconstructed the thoughts and images of this black galaxy, discovering what had not yet been eliminated from their chats, which the magistrate ordered to be screened. Reading the procedural documents one is left speechless: racial hatred and violence are the masters.
One boy tells another that he has made a new purchase and sends a photo of an ashtray with the National Socialist swastika imprinted on the bottom. The other commented by writing: “The only true party”. And then, referring to the ash that the object is intended to collect, he says: “it’s almost a shame to fill it with Jews.”
Still another, alluding to contact with the far-right ultras: “Football is a fun pastime, not a reason for living, that must be the defense of the white Aryan race”. Other examples: “Clashes in the streets with bars in the hands the revolutionaries did not die in vain”; “I can die for the revolution”; “Neither Communism nor Capitalism: National Socialist Action”, and so on.
Comments to messages are often “88”, a number that represents the eighth letter of the alphabet, the “H” which, repeated twice, is used in the terminology of the radical far right to mean “Heil Hitler” (the national PNA has just filed a lawsuit for the anti-Semitic chants that arose last March 19 from the Curva Nord of the Stadio Olimpico, where a man wearing a T-shirt with the words “88” and “Hitlerson” was also proudly displayed); and “ACAB”, an acronym for “all corps are bastards” – all policemen are bastards”. After the second attack, only one choral comment: “Honour”.
A girl posts a short video shot on her mobile in the chat, in which a black boy is seen with a toy in his hand while he seems to be picking flowers. The posted comment is “shit, a monkey in my garden”. One evening the young neo-Nazis plan an expedition to Sarzana against “Gypsies and Moroccans”. Another time they tell of the beating of an alleged “pedophile”. A boy shows the writing “Dux” in large letters tattooed on his back.
April 25, 2020 is about to arrive, and then April 28, the anniversary of Mussolini’s death: “Black week. Our enemies celebrate arrogantly, we commemorate. It’s the week that makes us quiver with the desire to scream PRESENT! … 75 years have passed since the martyrdom of the last of the Caesars. But it didn’t have to end like this! When I think of the Duce’s greatness and his martyrdom, the lump attacks me… It was said that the trapezoidal base of the tricolor flame was the urn that contained the remains of the Duce and the acronym of the party ‘Mussolini You Are Immortal’”.
Unfortunately, these are not ghosts, as stated by the Hon. Maria Grazia Frija, member of parliament of the Brothers of Italy and deputy mayor of the Municipality of La Spezia.
The presence of the Undersecretary for Education Paola Frassineti (Fratelli d’Italia) at Loyalty Action initiatives has been repeatedly documented. No distancing? And above all: the XII Final Provision of the Constitution forbids the reconstitution of the fascist party in any form. Why hasn’t Loyalty Action been disbanded yet?
Perhaps the young attackers have already repented. Let’s hope they can all build a new life for themselves.
Certainly we must thank the police forces who were up to their task. But addressing this challenge only as a safety challenge is addressing the symptoms and not the problem. It is politics that must be asked to address the issue. These episodes are in fact part of an ongoing process of political and cultural revision which has as its objective the end of anti-fascism as a civil culture of the country, born from the historical event that led Italy to the twenty years of dictatorship. But anti-fascism is the founding element of regained democracy, it is the common heritage of Italians. Nothing and no one can ever replace him in this indispensable function.
A large and united people will reiterate this in the demonstrations that will be held, as every year, on 24 April in the La Spezia district of Migliarina – where in November 1944 over 400 people were rounded up and taken to extermination camps – and on 25 April at the Monument of the Resistance at the Public Gardens.
In recent months, a very large anti-fascist network has formed around the Unitary Provincial Committee of the Resistance, which gave life to the demonstration on December 16, 2022 to react to the squad intimidation that took place against young anti-fascists at the Arci club in the Canaletto district of La Spezia. Twenty months of initiatives are planned to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Liberation struggle: in schools, in factories, in every district and town of the province, under the motto of President Sandro Pertini which referred to Giacomo Matteotti: “the fascism is not an opinion, it is a crime”.
We hope that all political forces, without distinction, will participate in the April 25 demonstrations and support the commitment to history and memory. One cannot “get stuck” in front of the word anti-fascism, as Giorgia Meloni did. The German communiqué posted after the massacre of the 335 dead killed at the Fosse Ardeatine explained why they had killed them: not because they were Italians but because in their eyes they were all “Badoglian communists”. Half a dozen weren’t even Italians, but Luxembourgers, Hungarians, Turks, Ukrainians…
Vittorio Foa wrote at the time: “Jews were killed because they were Jews, not for what they thought and did; anti-fascists were killed for what they thought and did; men who had nothing to do with it were killed just because they were numbers to be completed to carry out the order”.
Alessandro Portelli, who dedicated the most accurate study to the story of the Fosse Ardeatine massacre, recalled: “When the Italian Guido Buffarini Guidi, minister of the interior of what used to be called the Italian Social Republic, gave the Nazis a list of fifty Italians to kill, he doesn’t do it because they were Italians. He does it precisely because, in the eyes of his regime, they were quite the opposite: enemies of the fatherland, literally ‘anti-Italians’”.
Because the Italians were not, have never been, one thing. There were, then, the Italians who died or risked their lives for democracy and there were the Italians – they were the real “anti-Italians” – who defended barbarism.
The clandestine newspaper found under the bed by the killers of Bruno Bucci, one of the 335 victims, was called “Italia Libera”. The adjective is no less important than the noun.
It didn’t take long to remember that. Speaking of adjectives, Giorgia Meloni got that wrong too: “Italians”, she said, “innocent”. As if they had nothing to do with it and died by accident. But it wasn’t like that. For the Nazis and their fascist accomplices, the 335 victims were “guilty”. They were to blame for having chosen to be anti-fascists. The adjective “innocent” deprives their moral choice of dignity.
Giorgio Pagano, co-president of the Unitary Provincial Committee of the Resistance of La Spezia representing the Anpi
Published on Tuesday 28 March 2023
Printed 03/28/2023 by independent homeland to the url https://www.patriaindipendente.it/servizi/la-spezia-e-lultradestra-nerodigermany/